Party time in Munich after routine win

style="float: right; margin-bottom: 10px; font-weight: 600;"Sat 11th May, 2013

FC Bayern Munich completed their home fixtures for the season with a routine 3-0 win over FC Augsburg. The game itself was expectedly overshadowed by both the title celebrations and the farewell to Jupp Heynckes. Before the game, 22 players from 22 previous title-winning campaigns were presented on the pitch, each introduced by a single gun-shot.

In a grey and rainy first-half at the Allianz Arena, Augsburg more than matched their illustrious, local rivals with a performance that very much belied their league position. The visitors had three good penalty appeals all turned down throughout the game but were otherwise unable to create any clear-cut chances. Bayern, for their part, started very slowly and were nowhere near top form, perhaps wary of avoiding injury ahead of the forthcoming Champions League and German Cup finals. Indeed Heynckes himself admitted in a subdued post-match press conference that it hadn't been a good game for the first hour. Nevertheless, Bayern still created sporadic chances throughout. After only six minutes, Thomas Müller's shot inside the six-yard box fortuitously struck former Arsenal and Juventus keeper Alex Manninger straight in the face.

After the break, Bayern started with more purpose and in the 47th minute the 71,000 sell-out crowd were on their feet cheering a Bastian Schweinsteiger free-kick. The joy was short-lived though, as the ball had struck the side-netting. After a freak, deflected shot hit Manuel Neuer's crossbar, Bayern seized control. The opening goal came 61 minutes in when a poor cross by captain Philipp Lahm was cleared only as far as Dante. The Brazilian had time to look up and plant an immaculate cross on Müller's head, who scored his 13th Bundesliga goal from five yards out.

Immediately, Bayern introduced Xherdan Shaqiri and Mario Gomez and with eight minutes to go, the fleet-footed Swiss international doubled the lead. He and Franck Ribery led a Bayern counter-attack and despite the pass seemingly being behind Shaqiri, he was able to control it and spin around before firing into the corner with his weaker right foot. Five minutes later, the third Bayern substitute, Luiz Gustavo, received a short pass from Ribery and shot first time past Manninger to complete the victory.

After the game, the 22 former players provided a guard of honour for the new champions and after captain Lahm collected the so-called 'Salad Bowl' trophy (Salatschüssel) the celebrations continued with the customary 'beer showers'.

An ordinary win for Bayern in an extraordinary season. One more league game to go before it will be time to concentrate on the second and third parts of an unprecedented treble.

FC Bayern Munich: Neuer - Lahm, Van Buyten, Dante, Alaba - Martínez, Schweinsteiger - Robben (70' Shaqiri), Müller (83' Gustavo), Ribéry - Mandzukic (70' Gomez)

FC Augsburg: Manninger - Verhaegh, Reinhardt, Klavan, Ostrzolek - Baier - Hahn, Moravek (65' Koo), Ji, Werner (79' Oehrl) - Mölders (56' Vogt)

Goals: 1-0 Müller (69'), 2-0 Shaqiri (82'), 3-0 Gustavo (87')

Referee: Marco Fritz (Korb)
Attendance: 71.000


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